State, county and local emergency responders in Oregon and Idaho were busy this weekend investigating several motorcycle-involved crashes, some serious, on area highways during the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally based in Baker City, Oregon.

Oregon State Police (OSP) Lieutenant David MacManiman reported that at least nine motorcycle crashes happened late Friday into Saturday evening. Rain and wet conditions on Sunday may have helped keep activity down.

Some of the crashes included the following:

* On Friday night a motorcycle struck a deer on Highway 7. The motorcycle operator was transported for treatment by a private party with unknown injuries.

* On Saturday shortly after midnight on a US Forest Service Road between Joseph and Halfway, a southbound motorcycle rounding a right hand curve encountered a northbound motorcycle in the southbound lane. The southbound motorcycle lost control avoiding the other motorcycle and laid down on the highway leading to minor injuries to its operator. The northbound motorcycle did not stop at the scene.

* On Saturday afternoon OSP, Baker County Sheriff's Office and Adams County, Idaho Sheriff's Office responded to a report that a motorcycle lost control on Hells Canyon Road in Idaho. The motorcycle struck a guardrail, ejecting the operator over the guardrail and down a nearly 200 foot steep embankment. It took rescuers nearly 2 1/2 hours to get the seriously injured an up the embankment. He was transported by air ambulance to a hospital.

* On Saturday, two motorcycles traveling in the opposite direction on Granite Hill Highway west of Sumpter collided with one another. One of those motorcycles struck a third motorcycle. The operator of the first two involved motorcycles were transported by air ambulance to a Boise-area hospital with serious injuries. The two occupants of the third motorcycle were taken by ambulance to a Baker City hospital with minor injuries.